Final year Mechatronics engineering student at SRM IST Rahul R Ramakrishnan is truly excited about his semester abroad experience at Tokai University, Japan. With a sparkle in his eye and a penchant for Robotics, Rahul has developed a flexible backbone model for a continuum robot inspired by the elephant’s ubiquitous trunk.

Researching at the Yamamoto Laboratory along with a fellow Ph.D. student at Tokai University, under the supervision of Dr. Yoshio Yamamoto, Executive Director of International Education Center and Professor Department of Precision Engineering, the study has provided new insights into human-machine interaction, with improved flexibility, safety and a greater degree of freedom.

Rahul’s one semester visit was facilitated by the MoU between the two institutions. “Tokai University is one of the popular private Universities in Japan well known for its large international community with amazing campus facilities; they even have a building named Techno Tower with MIT standard facilities. It is truly a dream come true for me”, said Rahul, soon after returning to SRM to complete the rest of his course.

“My program at Tokai was designed for research in Robotics. I loved every minute of my stay there. The big take away is that I improved my self-confidence and got the once in a lifetime opportunity to experience a cross-cultural environment first hand. I made lots of new friends. I also got to learn more about the Japanese culture, food and to understand Japanese people better”, he went on to add.

The Semester Abroad Programme is part of SRM’s flagship international mobility programme in which several hundred students go abroad each year to study in over 100 partner universities across the globe, to earn credits for courses taken or for research internships.